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Top 100 DJs Poll - #13

Style: Unicorn-slaying tranceBest known for: Playing more hours than originally intended!Tune of 2012: Beatservice 'Fortuna' and Omnia & Ira 'The Fusion'Breakthrough DJ/Producer of 2012: KhoMha

"My year's been another super one, seeing how, in the US, dance music keeps growing and growing and to be one of the ambassadors of the sound here has been very rewarding," beams trance star Markus Schulz. Despite that, though, he remains cautious. "I wanna make sure that the art of the scene doesn't get lost in this whole boom. There are so many people who have worked so hard over the years in the scene and I hope they aren't forgotten."

He himself is one of those people - a US native since his teens, despite being born in Germany, Markus is a regular face at the biggest shows in the US from WMC to Avalon, at the same time as traversing the planet to play Ibiza, Brazil, the UK, Australia and countless more countries."Electric Daisy carnival in Vegas was crazy. Much of it was shut down because of high winds, but I ended up playing on a float in front of people who weren't just into trance, but into dubstep, house, everything. There was no production and it brought me back to the old rave days. It was a real highlight."

Other highlights, naturally, included the release of Markus' latest album, 'Scream'. It's a vast, 19-track affair made up of as many vocal tracks as instrumentals and, for its unusual trance toughness, has earned Markus the title of 'Unicorn Slayer' from fans. As such, the coming months for this self-declared "anti-trance trance guy" will be consumed with a worldwide tour to promote the album, as well as a new LP under his other, darker, Dakota alias.

You are and will be always the best!! This whole Top 100 this year is a piece of crap. Seriously. Deaf people having 8-10 years old voted or what?! Anyway, don't care about the results which have nothing to do with music.

Eh, I've been saying it over and over, this list is outdated and really shouldn't have any validity anymore.

The EDM scene indeed has exploded, but instead of keeping with the times and reformatting it, they maintain the same voting/results layout.

IMO, the list should be redone like this;

Split by genre so that we can stop fostering hate and criticism and we can really see how accurate these results are.

Example Top 100 Trance Djs/Producers
Top 100 House Djs/Producers

Etc, etc.This way the house fans and the trance fans can have their cake and eat it too, lol.

Anyways I can't wait until the newest fad takes over and if this outdated list is still used, maybe the sheeple of the world that constantly vote for the likes of Guetta, Skrillex and their ilk will go away and the scene can get back to it's trancey roots, and thus the trance Djs can be properly represented.

All in all, congrats to Markus and everyone at Coldharbour, year after year you guys put out quality music that makes me proud to bring my friends to see Markus play live.

Congratulations Markus for the 13th place. As explained below I think this rank is remarkable.

I'm not taking this voting seriously, too. It does not represent the best DJs but who has the most fans and can mobilize the most of these to vote. I doubt splitting the voting by genre would make the result better as it is all about popularity and not about quality. Those with the most followers on F*c*book, highest presence in all media and the best marketing will always be in front of those with the best track selection (includes seeing what the crowd wants to hear), the best mixing skills and the best interaction with the crowd. The last three points all apply to Markus. A bonus point for Markus is his remarkable nice character. Thatís why he is my favorite DJ. However others have a lot more followers and more presence in media. Tracks by Guetta for example are frequently played on the most popular terrestrial radio stations and therefore many young people know him while Markus never even gets a mention and nobody knows him except some fans of trance (this is my subjective observation from Germany). For this reason Markus 13th place is even more remarkable.

In my opinion a real improvement of the DJ Mag voting would be to not take production skills into account. For example I believe Jochen Miller is ranked 105th only because of his production skills. The other way round many long-time Trance fans did not vote for Markus this year because they donít like his latest productions. I think the voting should be split into a DJ and a Producer category.

Well, I don't take this poll seriously at all. For me such a result for trance producers is obvious - a lot of them are tried to impress common listeners (e g people who doesn't have specific preferences except more bass/more pitch bends/claps_claps_claps/weird voices/simple melodies) and by doing this came into the house musicians field. And the poll shows (if it can show at least something) that trance producers got defeated there. Simply because they lost their trance fans & didn't get new fans because guys like Avicii, Guetta, Romero ect still doing this job better - I mean produce house & trouse.

It is actually good (yes!) that Markus is 13 and not higher because this poll has no real weight for listeners like us. Crap Berlin is higher than Markus? Arnej at 143? Khomha at 159? You must be kidding. This only shows what matters among the common public. No use to be in the top when the top is about pop.

One more thing I wanted to add: I completely lost any faith (but who cares!) in the producers who start telling things like "well, I don't want to limit myself to one style" or "this track is kinda housy but I swear I produced real trance". Producers who play shit, create shit and keep telling that "trance is my life".

Just a little respect to your fans, and you'll get more. Be true to trance or be like....well...Marcus Schossow who is all about electro house, house, techno, trance and he openly tells: "yep, loving this shit, I'm not a trance producer, but doing it from time to time". That is honest.

It is actually good (yes!) that Markus is 13 and not higher because this poll has no real weight for listeners like us. Crap Berlin is higher than Markus? Arnej at 143? Khomha at 159? You must be kidding. This only shows what matters among the common public. No use to be in the top when the top is about pop.

I consider this result positively for the same reason. I hope Markus realizes that he has little chances to rank higher. Markus should concentrate on noncommercial high quality trance tracks even if that implies to lose some ranks in the next years. But I'm sure he will rank lower either way unless he makes a fundamental change to house like Tiesto did.

Originally Posted by CarlosSR

Anyways I can't wait until the newest fad takes over and [...] the scene can get back to it's trancey roots, and thus the trance Djs can be properly represented.

I highly doubt trance will ever get as popular as it was some years ago. The reason is the people. These days, an average clubber can't do anything with what I call trance music. They find the characteristic elements of trance music boring (i.e. among others the breakdowns, the careful built up of the progressive tracks, the melodies - especially the subtle ones). Recently, I have seen people (EDM fans but not trance fans) who were extremely bored by the breakdown of Rank 1ís Breathing (Push's Vocal Mix). As Markus mentioned in the Scream album thread, the people want harder tracks. They want to dance wildly until their body makes them stop (they should try hardstyle for that) but are neither willing nor able to close their eyes, dive into the music and finally get into a state of trance. In my opinion a reason for the lacking ability is that the average clubber is not so closely connected to music as the trance fans back in the old days. In the past trance fans were special people and music was part of their life. Today EDM has become popular and the EDM clubbers are from all social classes. For the most people music is not part of their life.

It's true, this is probably as bad as it gets in terms of ranking, so yeah, I can see the point in keeping true to the fundamentals of what defines each Dj's sound, as they aren't going to rank up higher regardless.